This invention relates to an improved apparatus for feeding folded and flattened cartons to a packaging machine.
More particularly, this invention is concerned with an improved apparatus for individually removing folded and flattened cartons from the bottom outlet opening of a magazine containing a heap of such cartons for feeding the latter to a conventional packaging machine, along which operating stations are provided for developing the individual cartons into parallelepiped form, filling the cartons with the desired product, closing the cartons after filling up operation and discharging the filled up and closed cartons from the packaging machine.
The raw material for the cartons is generally a preformed corrugated paper board having cut out parts and folding lines, so that it can be developed into the parallelepiped form of a box, and generally such cartons are supplied by manufactures in heavy stacks tied up with metal straps or the like.
The loading operation of heavy stacks into the magazine of the feeding apparatus, where said magazine has the upper loading opening at a relatively high level with respect to the ground floor, is laborious and time consuming, and accordingly it is advisable to maintain said loading opening as low as possible.
However, the packaging machine associated with the carton feeding apparatus may have the packaging line, i.e. the various operating stations at a higher level than at least the outlet opening of the magazine, and should be supplied, as in the case of cigarette packaging machines, with folded and flattened cartons along a substantially horizontal path.
As far as the applicant knows, the conventional packaging machines are provided with a substantially horizontal straight packaging line, or said packaging line is inclined as shown, for example, in FIG. 1 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,209, according to which the angular position of the packaging line has been selected to supply by simple gravity cans or similar rollable articles to the machine.
The teachings provided by said U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,209, although indirectly maintaining at least the outlet opening of the magazine for the folded and flattened cartons at a lower level than the packaging line, do not deal with the problem of horizontally feeding said cartons, i.e. maintaining such cartons correctly positioned should, for technical requirements, an initially rising and then horizontal path be required.
Thus, where at least the initial portion of the packaging line should be substantially horizontal and at least the magazine outlet opening should be at a lower level than said packaging line, the correct transfer of the cartons from the rising section to the horizontal section of the path would not occur, since at the junction location of the two sections, each carton would first advance in a slant attitude and cantilevered arrangement until its center line is downstream relative to the carton advancement direction, and would then fall down onto the horizontal section with resulting disengagement from the pushing means and possible incorrect arrangement of the carton on the horizontal section.